The Dead Sea Scrolls, which include the oldest known manuscripts of the Hebrew Bible, date from the third century BC to the first century AD.

Numbering around 900, they were discovered between 1947 and 1956 in the Qumran caves above the Dead Sea .

The parchment and papyrus scrolls contain Hebrew, Greek and Aramaic writing, and include several of the earliest-known texts from the Bible, including the oldest surviving copy of the Ten Commandments.

Many experts believe the manuscripts of the Dead Sea were written by the Essenes, a dissident Jewish sect that had retreated into the Judaean desert around Qumran and its caves.